Ubisoft's hit action game Assassin's Creed was released on the PC in April, but in appropriately Altair-like fashion, a pirated version of the game sneaked onto the Internet two months earlier. Obviously unhappy with the leak, the publisher has decided to take the matter to court and make someone pay.

Last month, Ubisoft filed suit against Charlotte, North Carolina-based Optical Experts Manufacturing, the company it had contracted to reproduce copies of the game disc. The publisher alleges that "an extraordinary breach of trust and gross negligence" on the part of OEM allowed one of the company's employees to take a copy of the game home early and post it on the Internet in late February, six weeks before the game arrived in stores.

The publisher alleges that OEM had agreed to abide by--and thereafter ignored--an array of security procedures that could have prevented the leak. Ubisoft further alleges that OEM admitted to not following through on its security commitments and causing the leak. One such security procedure was to prevent copies of the game from ever leaving OEM's premises.

Ubisoft said it tracked the earliest connections to the pirated copy of the game online and found that they were coming from the home of an OEM employee. An OEM-manufactured copy of the game was later found at the employee's residence, though the suit doesn't specify when that copy was found.

Wow surprised to heard that Ubisoft hired a OEM firm to made copies of Assassin's Creed. I think it time for games publishers to make copies inhouse to ensure no piracy leaks. There were almost every PC games leaked earlier before release dates.

Wow surprised to heard that Ubisoft hired a OEM firm to made copies of Assassin's Creed. I think it time for games publishers to make copies inhouse to ensure no piracy leaks. There were almost every PC games leaked earlier before release dates.

Most game companies don't have the capability to spin their own discs, so they use these contractors to do it. That's where the majority of piracy is coming from. I'm glad to see one of these companies finally attacking the source.